


Of An Intrepid Nature

by Losseflame



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Angst and Humor, Gen, Post Season 6 Episode 21, Season 6 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-23
Updated: 2011-10-23
Packaged: 2017-10-24 21:46:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Losseflame/pseuds/Losseflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s post- or pre- or somewhere-between-the-two-Apocalypse, Lisa is dead, and Ben... Ben has some shit to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ben is one of my favourite characters because so much can be done with him. It's fairly fantstic, and i really wanted to see him become a hunter.

**May 2018**

 

  It’s post- or pre- or somewhere-between-the-two-Apocalypse, Lisa is dead, and Ben…

 

  Ben’s heart is beating.  He’s not sure if that makes him count as _alive_ , per se, but with a beating heart and working muscles, he can still fight monsters and drink alcohol and have sex with people he probably shouldn’t.

 

  Not that he’s had much luck with the having sex part of things yet.  Ben figures he’ll get there eventually.

 

  As it stands, he’s driving down an abandoned highway in a Ford Taurus recently liberated from the driveway of yet another house empty of anything but putrefying bodies.

 

  He’s sure that the owner won’t mind, really.

 

  This part of Texas has only recently been liberated from the undead, and Ben’s currently driving through the bits of it that the government hasn’t tried to turn into decent settlements for people.

 

  Not that people really need it.  Overpopulation hasn’t quite been a problem as of late.

 

  Ben chose this purposely; he doesn’t have a license or a birth certificate or anything else that makes him real in the eyes of the law force, and Ben, funnily enough, isn’t particularly interested in having to run from insert-whichever-state-he’s-in’s police force.

 

  Again.

 

  It’s funny how even after the world discovers that the monsters under the bed are real and werewolves start infesting Idaho and zombies overrun Texas and demons swarm pretty much the rest of the world, people can still be hung up over little things like legality.

 

  Nevertheless.

 

  The window is rolled down just enough for Ben the smell the dusty air and cracked pavement and the growing scent of ozone.  The clouds are rumbling blackly, and even though Ben can sure as fuck tell the difference between regular clouds and demons, what with the growing number of years of experience, he still tightens the grip of one hand on the steering wheel as the other reaches for the flask of holy water on the passenger seat.

 

  One of the first things hunters develop is paranoia.

 

  The car’s a late 18th birthday present for him from him, because his last one was covered in God knows what kind of sticky, black substance from his battle with walking corpses and Ben still hasn’t gotten the hang of walking for large distances.

 

  It coughs and sputters and Ben will have to rework it from the inside out to make it worth keeping, but it’s better than nothing, and Ben’s learned to take what he can get, where he can get it.

 

  Besides, it has character.

 

  Ben’s not quite sure where he’s going (out of motherfucking, zombie-and-fed filled Texas, that’s for damn sure), but he’s running on the hope that wherever he ends up will be better than wherever he just left.

 

  He’s been running on that hope for so long his legs are about to give out.

 

 **August 2012**

Ben is leaning over the open hood of his mom’s car, fixing it up as she watches him bemusedly, when it comes to him in a sudden flash that he really has no idea how he has any idea of what he’s doing.

 

  He can identify every part that he sees, knows what it does, and knows how to fix most problems he’s seen under the hood, but Ben can’t for the life of him remember actually _learning_ it.

 

  He feels like mentioning it, but Mom’s already been spacey and distracted ever since the car accident and Ben really doesn’t feel like giving her more to be weird about. 

 

  So he doesn’t say anything.

 

.:.:.

 

  Later that night, right when he’s about to fall asleep but he’s still not quite unconscious it comes.

 

  Just a little snippet that almost feels like a dream but isn’t, because Ben can remember it afterwards and dreams have never really felt this important.

 

  It’s just Ben and this guy standing over an open car, whoever telling Ben which parts are which, what to do, and stepping back to let Ben at it.

 

  Ben’s never seen this guy in his life, except he’s pretty sure he has because why else would he be so familiar?

 

  Ben can’t place the face, even though he knows he should, because this guy is _important_ , somehow or another.

 

  He’s thinking, concentrating harder than he really should to be productive towards rest, when all of a sudden sleep rears up and rips open a gaping black in his mind and he falls through it, unconscious.

 

.:.:.

 

  The next day, Ben wakes up and goes downstairs, opening the fridge and reaching for the milk when he finally gets it.

 

  The guy in his dream-thing is the guy that crashed into them.

 

  Which makes no sense at all.

 

  Ben starts to wonder why he’d know a guy he’d never met until said guy t-boned him, but before he can even finish the thought the blackness in the back of his mind unfolds and covers his thoughts.

 

  Ben pitches forwards, knocked out cold by nothing but a train of thought.

 

 **May-June 2018**

  He finds a job bartending in Oklahoma, a little more south than he wants to be, but it’s closer to the heart of the country than he’s been in a few months, and Ben’s honestly missed the pulsing of civilization only slightly touched by the shitstorm of what-the-fuck that’s encircled the globe.  He also gets a little room overtop the bar where he can sleep, because as soon as he mentioned his lack of mailing address his boss fell over herself trying to set him up with a roof and a bed.

 

  She wears a rosary and asks him to pray with her often, and Ben can thank God for, if nothing else, making the less fanatic of His fanbase eager to help the needy.

 

  He works every day the bar is open, doesn’t really get paid enough to justify it, but gets free meals and a cheap rent, and that’s enough for him.

 

  It’s also close enough to functioning roads, so Ben can easily go to a hunt if one pops up.

 

  He thinks, sometimes, about maybe calling Claire to find out how she’s doing, how they’re both doing, but reminds himself that it’s probably not a good idea and besides, what with everything that went down they probably don’t have the same phone number anyway.

 

.:.:.

 

  It’s Friday, six o’clock, and the bar is filled with Bible-holding civvies-turned-hunters, a few teenagers trying to pawn off a lesson or two from said hunters, and one sneering man Ben recognizes from the few times he’d been at the Roadhouse 2.0.  Ben recognizes the feeling on his face.

 

  It’s always odd to see people picking up hunting as a weekend thing, like going to the gym, when others have been doing it most of their goddamn lives and have had them ruined for it.

 

  But that’s the good old U S of A.  If it’s available, it’s marketable. 

 

  There’s a T.V. right overhead of where he works, and Ben finds himself morbidly fascinated with the news it spills over into the room every night.

 

  Scientists have started experimenting on captured vampires, might be developing a biological weapon based on the enzyme that develops in dead blood that they’re so allergic to.  The packs of werewolves in Idaho have once again been reported shifting at half- or even quarter- moons, suspected cause being hormonal shifts on account of an as-of-yet unknown force.  Wendigos being tested for any remains of human psychological instincts.  Ben snorts at the last one, and ignores the curious look he gets from a customer.

 

  International news is spotty at best.  Japan is close to being a wasteland.  France and Germany have joined forces against the crops of possessions making citizens go civil-war on their asses.  People know fuck-all about Canada, because it closed it borders to the rest of the world months after this all started, and only considers admitting you if you have proof of relation to a Canadian citizen.

 

  And Christianity is damn near the only religion practiced.

 

  Ben smiles at the thought of some divine force actually trying to help, but decides that’s much too cynical for someone his age and instead palms a bottle of vodka under his jacket to have something worth drinking when his shift is over.

 

  It’s not exactly a good life, but it’s a life, and that’s more than what most of everyone else Ben knew has.

 

.:.:.

 

  Ben really can’t thank Margaret enough for giving him a job and a bed and regular meals, and he’ll be grateful to her forever, and she’s the sweetest person Ben’s met since the world got a dose of reality, but…

 

  But sometimes he really has to stop himself from strangling her.

 

  She’s fussing over him now, her hands fluttering between the cross around her neck and his arm, telling him that _really, it’s dangerous, young people shouldn’t be out there_ and _picking up fighting evil is nothing good_.

 

  He tells her that he’s been fighting the things in the dark long before anyone else even knew about them, which makes her gasp and fuss some more but Ben really doesn’t care at this point.

 

  It’s not exactly the truth, but it’s not really a lie either. 

 

  Ben breaks free of her, heading towards his car to drive towards the tombs (cemeteries were given up on around about the same time ghouls started ravaging them, but secure tombs were still available to those who wanted them) for a simple salt-and-burn. 

 

  The next day, Ben wakes up early and packs his bags, leaving a goodbye note on the counter along with a couple bills to cover his rent.

 

  

  1.   He drives away, promising himself to remember her and knowing in a month he won’t recall her name.      
  



 

 **September-November 2012**

  Ben starts to train himself.

 

  After the scares of passing out because of what he thinks about, Ben starts to train himself.

 

  He lies on his bed and just lets himself remember this guy’s face, just lighting quick, and when he starts feeling woozy he clenches his fists tight enough for the nails to break the skin, holding off the urge to _sleep_.

 

  He starts with lasting five seconds.  Soon it reaches fifteen.  A few weeks later it’s thirty. A minute.  Five minutes.

 

  It makes him sweaty and feverish and wild-eyed with an aching, protesting headache, but Ben can’t help but feel that this is _important_ , the kind of important people died and killed for.

 

  And, when Ben lets himself actually think about how weird this situation is, the kind that people wiped others’ memories for.

 

  Soon he can press himself even further, searching for a name or any other memories.

 

  There are pancakes made for him in the morning.  Flashes that could be camping trips.  A voice on the phone, telling him to jump out the window.  Hands showing him how to use a sawed-off shotgun properly.

 

  His mother, stabbing herself.

 

  Ben may not have the best grades, but he _knows_ when things are wrong, deeply wrong.

 

  So he decides to take it to his mom.  Who would never, as far as he knows, feel the urge to stab herself in the gut with a screwdriver.

 

  Ben hopes, anyway.

 

  She’s sitting on the couch looking out the window in their open living room, the sunlight falling across her face.  Ben swallows.  She looks beautiful in this tranquility, and Ben doesn’t want to do something that would upset it.

 

  But she’s tracing the scar she got during the car crash absent-mindedly, and if whatever is going on involves her, Ben knows that she’d want to know too.

 

  “Mom?” 

 

  She looks up and smiles, all bright and the crinkling of her eyes chasing away the darkness Ben could swear he saw lurking there.

 

  “What is it, sweetie?”

 

  Ben thinks about protesting against the endearment, but decides that it’s a battle for another day. “Do you ever feel…empty?  Like there are holes in your head where there are supposed to be memories?”

 

  Lisa’s eyes widen, just for a moment.  Then she nods cautiously.  “You, too?”

 

  “Yeah.”  He sits down next to her, reaching out to hold her hand.  It’s cold in his.  She sighs and tugs him closer before wrapping him up in a hug.

 

  And just like that, Ben starts to cry.  Because it’s strange and terrifying and he misses someone he doesn’t remember and if there are things that can completely get rid of someone else’s memory, what else is out there?

 

  She rocks him back and forth and lets out comforting little noises and strokes his hair, and in a few minutes Ben has cried himself out.

 

  They sit in silence for while until Lisa says something really quiet.  “I don’t think it was a car crash.”

 

  Ben whispers something back.  “I don’t think it was either.”

 

  Which opens up the terrifying question of what actually happened.

 

.:.:.

 

  Ben dreams about a guy in a too-big trench coat in a hospital room, tapping his fingers to two peoples’ foreheads.  Then he’s reliving the guy telling them how sorry he is, but his eyes are too shadowed for it to just be about a car crash.

 

  When Ben wakes up, he has a name to that face.

 

 _Dean_.

 

 **July 2018**

 

  There are a lot more ghosts than there used to be.

 

  Correction:  There are a lot more _pissed as fuck_ ghosts than there used to be.

 

  Which isn’t really all that surprising, because being munched on by a werewolf or ghoul or revenant or maybe being rode around like a cheap pony by a demon until you die is a hell of a lot more violent than a heart attack or a suicide or a murder, even. 

 

  But that doesn’t mean it’s not a little annoying.  The spirit haunting an abandoned apartment that Ben had the brilliant idea to clear out of the paranormal throws him against the wall, hissing before disappearing as Ben lets off a round of salt in its face.

 

  Fuck, just _ow_.

 

  Ben rolls to his feet and goes back to gathering up the scattered remains off the gore-encrusted floor, wallowing in the glamour of his life.

 

  He’s so intent on his work that he slips and just for a second lets his guard down.

 

  It only takes a second for things to go to shit.

 

  He knows that, and apparently Casper-on-amphetamines knows that too.

 

  With a screech, the bitch grabs the back of his coat and throws him.

 

  Ben only has a second to realize that he’s been thrown backwards out of a window, before he’s falling and _holy fuck he’s going to die_.

 

  _The sky is grey_ , he thinks numbly, _it’s going to rain soon_.

 

  And the sky is getting farther.  The breath rushes out of Ben’s lungs and he’s waiting for the fall before he’s suddenly twisting and –

 

  He lands softly on some grass, the apartment building in the distance and the remains a pile next to his head.

 

  Ben considers turning his face to the grass and crying, or maybe praying or something else, till he sees the man looming over him.

 

  His hair is short, sandy and well-coiffed, and his eyes are steely grey-blue.  He’s wearing a black v-neck sweater with a suit jacket and his presence is so damn _inhuman_ Ben wants to reach for his gun but has a feeling whoever this guy is could kill him before his fingers are even close.  There’s a scent of ozone in the air again, only it’s rolling off of this guy in waves and Ben can practically feel his power pressing against his skin.

 

  “You could try to reign in your imbecilic urges, though I suppose your level of intelligence is passed down genetically and therefore not high enough for you to practice self-control is it?”  The man hums, looking down on Ben.  Ben says nothing.  The man smiles.  The effect is more frightening than anything else.

 

  “Although I see a little bit of your mother’s common sense lives in you.  You haven’t tried to tell me what to _do_ , yet.” 

 

  Ben is dead.  Ben is dead and this is Purgatory, where he will spend some time atoning for underage drinking, underage driving, lying and cheating and accidentally killing his goldfish when he was seven.  And hopefully whoever this guy is won’t be around for it.  Said man rolls his eyes.

 

  “Cassie is certain that his bum chum would appreciate your being kept alive, although I can’t much see the worth yet.  However, I have been put on idiot patrol and _I_ would appreciate if you didn’t do things even your predecessor wouldn’t, like perhaps doing a dangerous job all by your lonesome.”

 

  Ben nods, frantically.  The man smiles again.  “We’re the last two still here, mud monkey, myself and Cassie.  You should be flattered we’re paying any attention to you at all.”

 

  And then he’s gone.  Just like that, with a sound that reminds Ben of the rustling of bird wings.

 

  Ben rolls on his side, pukes up the granola bar and water he had for breakfast, burns the remains and totters back to his car, determined to drive away and ignore the trembling in his hands.

 

  He drove away just fine, but it takes hours for the tremors to leave.

 

 **January-June 2013**

  Ben finds the shotgun in the back of his closet, hidden underneath a floorboard.

 

  He’s not sure why he had the sudden urge to look there, but he came up with something and therefore it wasn’t a complete bust.

 

  He brings it downstairs and puts it in the chest filled with weapons he and his mom have been finding ever since they started to look.

 

  He checks the rounds, his hands knowing the motions even when his memory fails him.

 

  It’s filled with rock salt rounds, just as he’d expected.

 

 _Salt dispels ghosts and demons, same with iron.  It’s easy to make rounds with salt.  I’ll show you._

  Ben shakes his head and looks over to where his mom is ripping up the carpet in the front hallway, revealing a pentagram in a circle filled with symbols.

 

  She stands back and smiles.  “Devil’s Trap.”

 

  Ben stares, and then his own memory flashes.  “Yeah.” 

 

  Lisa places the carpet on top of it again, and Ben wonders if it’s weird to search things out just to put them into hiding again.

 

  And then he has a little bit of a darker thought: what if he’ll want to apply that same philosophy to his memories?

 

.:.:.

 

  Ben’s pouring over the newspaper – a recent hobby – when he reads something that sounds like a haunting in the next town over. 

 

  Lisa sits down across from him at the breakfast table, and she raises her eyebrows at his expression.

 

  He slides the article towards her.  Somewhere along the path of discovery, they’re started to communicate silently, and Lisa starts to read without question.

 

  Her eyebrows get higher and higher as she reads, and she gives Ben a stunned look when she’s done.  It says something along the lines of _No way, mister._

 

  “Please, Mom?  Who else will?”  He puts this forth as a challenge, and it puts cracks in Lisa’s mask.  He tries again, once more.  “We know so much about how to help people, Mom.  Someone’s gotta, because _he_ probably isn’t.” 

 

  They still aren’t quite sure who _he_ is – a name, although a leap forwards, really isn’t enough – but it’s still a steel bullet of an argument.

 

  Lisa sighs, crumpling forwards and rubbing her temples.

 

  “I’ll call you in sick for school.”

 

.:.:.

 

  And that’s how they get started.  It’s always small jobs, because Lisa doesn’t have some fake i.d. – and that’s a line Ben knows she doesn’t want to cross – and Ben’s not old enough for it to matter either way.

 

  Ghosts, mostly.  A shapeshifter, once, but Ben got blood on his t-shirt and Lisa just started crying, so Ben stopped looking for jobs that sounded like that.

 

  A couple weeks into this, Lisa decides to move.  Ben agrees, and they pack the bare necessities, leap into the car, and drive away.

 

  Ben figures it should be harder than this to leave a life behind, but it isn’t, and Ben isn’t really about to question it.

 

.:.:.

 

  Funnily enough, the world wakes up right about the same time that they do.

 

  Ben’s only just getting used to having a third of his year filled in when the reports about werewolves start filtering through.  Then vampires.  Then ghosts.

 

  Then the undead.

 

  Lisa’s lips tighten as scientists and governments start backing this up on the radio, and Ben presses his hands together in something that might be a prayer but isn’t because he doesn’t believe as the religious riots and mobs start filtering through the new channel.

 

  “We’ve handled ourselves this far, Ben.”  That’s all that needs to be said.

 

  The next day they finish the job they were working and move on.

 

  Ben stares at the small town they left behind and wonders how much longer it’ll be until more people start doing what he and his mom are.

 

  He wonders how much longer until Dean becomes even harder to find.

 

 **September – October 2018**

  Ben likes to think his psyche is highly resilient, because he managed to just keep hunting and being nomadic even after his brush with whoever-the-fuck.

 

  Ben’s going to call him Dickweed.  Only in his head, though.  Heaven only knows what’ll happen to Ben if Dickweed finds out what his little nickname is.

 

  Or maybe Heaven doesn’t.  Hearsay around hunter circles (actual hunters, not civvies who’ve burned a ghost and decided they’re awesome) is that Heaven’s completely closed off, whatever going on in Earth not fitting with their plans and therefore being ignored. 

 

  Ben’s not sure if he believes if Heaven is out there at all, but he’s heard talk of angels, if not proof, from people ( _Claire_ ) he’s deemed relatively trustworthy, so Ben’s willing to give it some suspension of disbelief. 

 

.:.:.

 

  If the world is ending, then it’s taking its damn time doing it.  Ben sighs and turns on his stomach.  It leaves a lot of time for boredom.

 

  He’s in the crappy room of a recently rebuilt motel, and he would be watching T.V. only that shit was the first to go in the recent supernatural uprising of Colorado.  They still have to fix it, and Ben feels more annoyed than he should over the fact that people have been too busy cleaning up their shattered lives to bother starting up re-runs of _Dr. Sexy M.D_.

 

  It’s a guilty pleasure.

 

  He yanks out the journal his mom had insisted they started keeping and re-reads it all, the personal entries and the informational ones alike.

 

  He practices all three exorcisms.  Memorises them.  Memorises Devil’s Traps and Enochian warding.

 

  Tries to focus on anything but the fact that it’s five years today his mom’s died. 

 

  Ben could kill for a drink right now.

 

.:.:.

 

  Ben is still buzzing from the post-hunt adrenaline high, lying in the backseat of his car and wishing someone attractive and willing were lying next to him.  Preferably with both of them wearing fewer clothes than he is.  He’s parked a little ways off the road in what was probably once upon a time a wheat field, but now has a mix of long, wild grass and germinating seeds and wildflowers that look bright in the dusk.

 

  He breathes in, deeply, feeling the stretch of his lungs and pretends he can hear his imaginary partner do the same.  

 

  Instead of getting up to debauchery-filled activities, however, he’s staring at the phone he’s liberated from someone’s pocket, wondering if maybe today’s the day he should call them and check up.

 

  They tried, the first couple months after Ben left the first time, to stay in contact, but it sputtered and died when they all got busy doing other things.

 

  Ben was hunting.  He’s not sure what they were doing, but it probably involved education and full meals and resolutely ignoring the Jehovah’s Witnesses who _still_ went door to door even after the fucking Apocalypse started.

 

  Or whatever this is.

 

  Maybe, maybe they picked up a shotgun filled with salt after Ben left, maybe they’re doing the same thing he is.

 

  But then he imagines Amelia holding a weapon and starts to laugh, deciding that no, that probably didn’t happen.

 

  The Novak’s, Ben thinks, have never really looked like people built to contain greatness.

 

.:.:.

 

  The first thing he thinks is that he’s asleep.

 

  The second is that out of all the shitty places to have a lucid dream, he had to have chosen the dock on the lake of his third grade summer camp.

 

  Not that it isn’t filled with awesome memories, but fishing isn’t exactly his way of having a totally exciting time. 

 

  He’s about to attempt to imagine a Playboy Bunny into existence when he hears the flutter of bird wings next to him.

 

  Resolutely praying Dickweed hasn’t showed up to ruin his dream, Ben turns his head.

 

  A guy wearing an oversized trench coat with brown hair and freakishly blue eyes turns his own head to look down at Ben where he sits in his beach chair.  He feels familiar in the maddening way that you know someone, but can never place where you’ve seen them before.

 

  “You are much like your father in what you consider to be peaceful.”  He sounds like he gargled nails.  Ben frowns.

 

  “I don’t have a father.”  At least, if he does, he doesn’t really care either way.  His mom raised him fine.

 

  The man looks away again, sighing regretfully.  Ben hates people who act like they know something he doesn’t.  He frowns again and turns his head, deciding that this is _his_ dream and he’s going to ignore whatever he goddamn wants, sighing weirdoes in dirty trench coats included.

 

  “Ben…”  The man starts, touching a hand to his shoulder.  It’s a surprisingly human touch, and it just doesn’t fit with the man, the way he holds himself and the look in his eye.  It’s like seeing a dog wear shoes.  Shit like that just isn’t supposed to happen.

 

  “If you say you have a message for me, I’m going to hunt you down like a little bitch, I swear to God.”  Honestly, sometimes Ben just gets tired of the tie-ons that come with fighting the supernatural.  Disappearing memories and disappearing men-who-aren’t-really-human included.

 

  The man gives Ben a look, and Ben shuts up.

 

  “Things are changing.”

 

  Ben snorts.  “Things have been changing for years now.  No one’s bothered having subconscious powwows with me about it till tonight.”

 

  The man ignores him.  Typical.  “The Cage was supposed to hold all beings within it till Death itself ends, with no power strong enough to breach it.  Humans are awakening from the ignorance that has led them since the beginning.  And Purgatory’s souls…”  He stops, pauses, and closes his eyes briefly as if in pain.

 

  Ben can honestly say he’s never had less of a clue about what was going on then he does now.

 

  “The fuck has any of that bullshit have to do with me?”

 

  The man looks at him again, his eyes holding the answer but his lips remaining silent.

 

  Until he speaks again, not to answer Ben’s question but to tell Ben where to go.

 

  “Go to 39, -105.”

 

.:.:.

 

  Ben’s eyes snap open unnaturally, his heart pumping adrenaline through his veins.

 

  Fuck.

 

  He groans before rolling out of bed and yanking out the books of maps he stole from a library after the Internet fell apart for the first time from his duffel bag.

 

  39, -105.  The Ass-end of Nowhere and Where Ben Will Meet His Special Destiny.

 

  Sounds like a bad industrial band.

 

  A half-hour later he’s driving towards Arapaho Forest, because a nerdy guy in a dirty trench coat asked him to.

 

  Ben’s not going to lie; he thinks he’s fucked in the head.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's post- or pre- or somewhere-between-the-two Apocalypse, Lisa is dead, and Ben...ben has someshit to deal with.

**August-September 2013**

  Lisa and Ben find the Roadhouse 2.0 outside of a small town in South Dakota.

 

  It’s dusty and looks sort of empty, but they have on good word from one hunter, who heard from another hunter, who heard from another hunter who happened to be Bobby Singer that if you wanted to find someone, or get information on just about any supernatural being, this is the place to go.

 

  They heard the same thing about Bobby Singer himself, but he’d gone MIA and as much as Ben feels regret about anyone going missing, it’s not Bobby they’re looking for.

 

  It’s Dean.

 

  Lisa grabs his hand and pushes open the claptrap door.  Ben squirms but lets her, because that’s usually her reaction whenever other hunters are around and Ben’s made peace with the fact that he’ll be known as that sixteen year old hunter who holds his mom’s hand.

 

  Manliness is for people who aren’t secure in their sexuality, anyway.

 

  The floor is dusty and it smells like whiskey, gunpowder and the lingering smell of adrenaline.  There are a few hunters sitting scattered around the tables and one or two sitting at the bar, where a woman with skin the colour of dark chocolate holds court.  Most eyes follow her, but she ignores them resolutely and smiles as Lisa and Ben make their way over to a table and sit down gingerly.

 

  Over the bar is a little plaque with the words ‘In Memory of the Harvelles’ written in silver.  Ben figures it’s the name of whoever owned the original Roadhouse.

 

  The woman makes her way over, coming with a beer and a can of Coke.

 

  Ben can guess which one’s for him.

 

  “It’s on the house.”  The woman puts the beer in front of Lisa and the Coke in front of Ben and puts herself in front of both of them.  She has a hint of a British accent clinging to her vowels, like cobwebs to forgotten corners, and Ben just knows that it’s a living reminder of something she wants to forget.  He’s learning that most things are, these days.  “Haven’t seen you two around here before.”

 

  It’s a subtle hint, a push in the direction she wants the conversation to go in.  Lisa’s smile goes a little flinty, and Ben sips his Coke loudly, mainly to break the tension.  Lisa has been growing touchier when people ask questions about them, and Ben isn’t interested in having his mother get into a bar fight with British chick because the horrid woman had the gall to ask a simple question.

 

  The nerve of her.

 

  “We’re looking for someone.”  Lisa says this carefully, monitoring the bartender’s reaction. 

 

  The woman raises an eyebrow, the smile still in place.  “Interesting.”  She sits down in the chair opposing Ben and his mother, putting her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands.  “I’m Tamara.”

 

  She doesn’t offer her hand, and neither does Lisa.  It should probably make things tense, but it relaxes the air around them as formalities fall away. 

 

  “I’m Lisa, and this is my kid, Ben.”  No last names are exchanged. 

 

  “Mind telling me who you’re looking for?”

 

  Lisa takes a sip of beer and runs her nails over the wood grain of the table, her eyes following her nails’ path.  “We don’t really know ourselves.  No last name, no picture.  Just a name.”  Lisa looks up again.  “Dean.”

 

  Tamara breathes in sharply, but otherwise remains neutral.  “And you know for sure this person you’re looking for is a hunter?”

 

  Lisa half-smiles.  “Yeah, the evidence was pretty convincing.”

 

  Ben wants to break in with their memory loss – maybe Dean was a psychic? – but Lisa’s hand tightens around his own.  He bites his lip and remains quiet.

 

  “Are you perhaps looking for Dean Winchester?”  Tamara hushes her voice and leans forwards, and something in Ben’s brain just unlocks.

 

  It feels like an adrenaline rush, the sudden certainty.  It’s like all of his memories were just encrypted in code and the full name of the man they’ve been looking for was the cipher.  There’s flashes of changelings and baseball and car lessons.  Devil’s Traps and shotguns and iron.  Mom, possessed.  The car ride to the hospital.  Through it all, there’s a rush of emotion, because Dean is _Dean_ , the closest thing to a father Ben’s ever had and the closest thing he wants to one. 

 

  “Yeah.  Yeah, we’re looking for Dean Winchester.”  Ben smiles as he says this.  Putting a name to the face haunting the back of Ben’s mind is a relief that sings through him and makes him giddy.  He glances at his mom, with her wide eyes and white knuckles, and knows that she’s had the same flash of remembrance. 

 

  Tamara sighs, rubbing her eyes, and the gesture cuts through Ben’s celebration like a knife.  Lisa’s hand reaches for his again, and her fingers are cold when they tighten around his.  They tremble a little.  Ben squeezes back.

 

  “What is it, Tamara?”  Lisa’s voice is steely, a sharp contrast to her wavering expression.

 

  Tamara glances up at the two of them, with their expressions of sinking hope, and looks down again.  Ben feels something in his chest go cold, like it does in a hunt right before something is about to go horribly wrong but he can’t do anything about it.

 

  “No one’s seen hide nor hair of Dean Winchester in more than a year.”  Tamara presses her lips together as she watches Ben deflate helplessly and Lisa go tense and brittle.  “But considering what he was mixed up in…”

 

  “What, exactly, was that?”  Lisa’s voice is as brittle as the rest of her.  Tamara shrugs.

 

  “The first Apocalypse, for one thing, was all on him – or that’s what’s being said, anyway, it’s not as if anyone can ask him to clarify – and people are damn sure that whatever is going on now can probably be traced back to the Winchesters somehow.  Not many supernatural disasters can’t anymore.”  She pats Lisa’s arm.  “This may sound harsh, but your best hope is that he’s not in any pain, whatever that may entail, because when he wants to disappear he can do so well.  You won’t find him, Lisa, Ben, so I suggest that you go back to whatever it was you were doing before.  Hunting isn’t for children and housewives.”

 

  Tamara went from ‘mildly acceptable’ to ‘complete bitch’ in all of one point five seconds in Ben’s mind, and he allows his mom to tug him, shell shocked, out of the bar after Lisa gave a few icy goodbye smiles and a comment about the fidelity of Tamara’s mother.

 

  Ben would be embarrassed by that, if it weren’t for the fact that his soul is too busy collapsing into itself to register any other feelings.

 

  When Lisa drives away, she turns the kind music Dean hated up really loud, and they both ignore the sudden irregularity of her breaths.

 

  Neither of them cry.

 

.:.:.

 

  They make it back to the motel room in silence, and Ben yanks off his boots, crumples onto the bed and falls asleep without bothering to brush his teeth or get into pyjamas or slide underneath the blankets or any of that superfluous stuff.  He dreams about nothing.

 

  When he wakes up, it’s slowly and his head feels like it was stuffed with cotton and his mouth tastes like a family of non-hygienic chipmunks had taken up residency there and Ben isn’t as surprised as he should be that his mom is looking for another job to take.

 

  She looks at him and smiles.  “Housewife, my ass.”

 

.:.:.

 

  It’s only after three hours of silence that Lisa brings up the thing that Ben thought they weren’t talking about.

 

  “Ben…we’ll find him, baby.  He has a lot of stuff to answer to.”

 

  “Just like that, Mom?”  Ben isn’t really sure what he’s asking but Lisa must be because she ruffles his hair.

 

  “Yeah, sweetie.  Just like that.”

 

  And that’s all there is to it.

 

.:.:.

 

  It’s some demons with a chip on their shoulder and not enough salt and an exorcism that doesn’t get finished and next thing you know Ben is holding his mom’s guts in with his two hands and a gauze bandage that isn’t doing shit.

 

  It’s a stupid, horrible way to die and even though he shouldn’t be thinking like that Lisa’s pulse is slowing underneath his hands and he’s left with not much else to think.

 

  His chest is hurting from his heaving sobs and he knows there are still demons somewhere in the woods but Ben can only pay attention to Lisa, even as her face is blurring from his tears.

 

  “Mom?  Mom, it’s gonna be – it’s gonna be fine.”  His voice cracks, breaks and his chest _hurts_ but he keeps muttering nonsense and putting pressure on the gash.

 

  It feels like warm, raw steak cut ragged.

 

  Lisa breathes, a liquid sound emanating from the back of her throat and her eyes are unfocused, staring at the sky above her blankly. 

 

  Ben chokes again.

 

  Lisa stops breathing.

 

 **October 2018**

  It’s a couple days of near-constant driving, sleeping in the backseat and peeing in ditches before Ben gets to the winding, dead-leaf road leading into the forest.  Once upon a time it was a National Park, judging from the dilapidated sign in front, but now it’s just another rundown place with no life and no hope.

 

  Just like the rest of the world, Ben supposes.

 

  He gets out of the car and does a long, slow stretch, feeling his tendons strain and hearing each vertebrae crack.  He rolls his shoulder, shakes his head and opens the trunk to raid his weapons stash.

 

  Fuck, Trench Coat didn’t really mention if he’d be facing anything.

 

  Best to assume that it’s a horrible trap with enough demons to fill up the gaping chasm of where Sarah Palin’s soul is supposed to be.  Yeah, so, holy water, salt rounds, regular handgun….

 

  Ben really didn’t think this one through.

 

  He sighs and rubs his hand over his face before slamming the trunk closed and locking the car up. 

 

  It’s a habit.

 

  He turns to start hiking wherever, and freezes, his hand pulling out his gun subconsciously.  A man is standing a few feet away from him, waving his hand and smiling.

 

  Creepy.

 

  Ben nods back at the guy – who only looks a few years older than him, with a red ponytail going down his back – and asks, while still holding his gun, “Who’re you?”

 

  “Lucas Barr.”  He brushes his hair back with one hand.  “Dean Winchester saved my life when I was a kid, if that’ll stop you from pointing that gun at me.” 

 

  Ben lowers it cautiously.  “A: why should I believe you?, B: why are you here?, and C: Christo.”

 

  Lucas doesn’t flinch at the word, but breaks out into another calm, stoner smile.  “No worries, man.  No possession over here.” 

 

  He walks forwards, hands out, and Ben flings the flask of holy water at Lucas, splashing his skin, hair, and unfortunately grubby t-shirt.  Lucas spits out the water and gives Ben the eye.

 

  “Okay, you can’t really blame me for being paranoid, Mr. Pop-out-of-nowhere.  Address issues A and B now.” 

 

  Lucas, surprisingly, rolls his eyes.  “There’s no way for me to really prove A, is there?  And for B…I’m a good listener.  Eavesdropper, really.  Word around the cosmic street was that this was the hot place to be.”  He shrugs.  Ben opens his mouth to protest the lack of sense this makes, his lack of knowledge, and the un-lack of weird not-coincidences that are starting to rule his life.  Lucas grins, seeing this.

 

  “I know where you need to go.  Do you?”

 

  Ben can’t really argue with that one.

 

  “Fine.  You have a weapon or something?  I’m not sure if we’re going to need them.”

 

  Lucas shrugs again.  “Not unless you can kill things with a bong.”

 

.:.:.

 

  “What did you mean by listener?”  They’ve been walking for an hour now, with the only the sound of their feet and the birds, and Ben’s asking as much for the break in silence as for his curiosity.

 

  Lucas hums thoughtfully.  “I’m going to have to explain the shit that happened before to explain what it is now.  You okay with that?”  Ben nods.  Lucas grins.  He does that a lot.  It’s starting to piss Ben off.

 

  “When I was 8, this ghost started a killing spree in my town, and I was there when he killed my dad.  Looking at the ghost in the water, I…I don’t know, woke up?  It was like something just flipped on and I could…not really hear him, but sense him and feel him and I guess it was like hearing him, but maybe hearing him on another level. The way humans have forgotten how, I guess.  I don’t know.  It freaked me out for awhile, and I wouldn’t talk because I was afraid he’d hear me too.  And then he went away and it seemed like it stopped, but then the rest of the world began to fill with sound, too.  It’s like being tapped into the universe’s radio.”  Lucas finishes, and Ben tries to decide whether he understands now or is more confused than ever.

 

  “So…how do I fit in, then?”  Ben asks, swatting at the mosquitoes just starting to appear.  Lucas looks over and tilts his head.

 

  “I can tune into most of the frequencies I feel, and on each…radio station? I tapped into, it mentioned some big shit going down, all somehow focusing here.  Only two or three mentioned you, though.  But one that did, it sort of ‘said’” – Lucas makes air quotes – “that I, Lucas Barr, needed to get my pothead ass over here to get you to the converging point.  Also that you’re a stubborn ass just like your father.”

 

  Ben suddenly has an idea of who Lucas was listening to.  “Oh…”

 

  “Don’t worry, man.  There’s been no mentions of any cosmic hateboners for you, so there’s that.”

 

  “I’m reassured.”

 

  “S’why I’m here.”

 

.:.:.

 

  “So how’d you find yourself in the middle of the hunting ground, Benny?”  Ben grits his teeth against the nickname but answers anyway.

 

  “Some dick named Dean Winchester.  Lived with me and my mom for a year.  Disappeared and somehow wiped our memories.  We started hunting on a quest to get them back.”

 

  “How’d that work out?”

 

  Ben snorted and looked away.  “It worked out _peachy_.”

 

  Lucas doesn’t press.  Ben starts to like him a lot more.

 

  “And you?” 

 

  Lucas grins with a little too much teeth.  “When the Apocalypse – the real one, not whatever bullshit is going on now – started, the airwaves went haywire.  By this time, my mom had already done a little research on the subject, because you can’t watch your dad be drowned by an angry ghost without being a little curious, but she hadn’t done anything major.  Then the deadspace opened and out came the devil-kraken, and it was like air raid sirens started screaming on every channel.  Things were just fundamentally _changing_ , you know?  My mom and I just changed with it.”

 

  Ben nods.  “Where’s your mom now?”

 

  “Running a gent’s entertainment club somewhere in Canada.  Her uncle immigrated there about 25 years ago.”

 

  “Why aren’t you there, too?”  Because, really, Canada’s almost become the goddamn promise land in the more desperate circles.  Land of honey and bread and normality.  Ben can’t think of any reason Lucas would be south of the border when he could be north of it.

 

  Lucas gives him a look, the look hunters get right before heading into a hunt they aren’t sure they’ll be coming back from.  “Because I’m here.”  Ben says nothing.  “Whatever energy or soundwaves or however you want to think of it that’s converging here is going to change things, one way or another.  So I’m pretty sure it’s more important for me to be here, with you – someone goddamn mentioned in the harmony of the universe – than to be enjoying a complementary show at ‘The Painted Ladies’.”

 

  Ben shakes his head.  “A stoner with a sense of responsibility.  Who would have thought?”

 

  Lucas smiles but slaps Ben over the head anyway, and Ben smiles in return.

 

  It’s probably the first time he’s made a friend in a couple years.  He missed the feeling.

 

.:.:.

 

  An hour later, right when Ben’s about to complain about how long they’ve been walking and why can’t you look at least a little tired, Lucas? Lucas stops dead, his eyes growing wide.

 

  “What is it?”  Ben puts his hand on Lucas’s shoulder.

 

  “Everything just went silent.  Fucking everything.”  Lucas’ tone is raw and filled with the kind of desperate fear Ben’s only seen in his own nightmares, when he can see his mother but can’t quite reach her, and knows what if he doesn’t bad shit’ll go down. 

 

  “Okay, maybe –”

 

  Lucas shushes him quickly, tilting his head to the side and stretching his arms out, spreading his fingers.

 

  Yeah, Ben’s just going to leave him to that. 

 

  “There’s a humming….it’s starting to fill in again, but there’s a humming that wasn’t there before.”

 

  Lucas takes off in one direction twice as fast as before, and Ben whimpers before jogging after him.

 

  He wonders how Lucas copes with it, with being surrounded by sound all the time, with no silence at all, even if it’s not the same idea of sound that Ben is familiar with.  He wonders if maybe the silence was as much a blessing as it was a fright.  But then Ben looks at Lucas walking ahead of him, guided by the new sound and humming along with something Ben can’t hear and decides that, no, Lucas probably likes the constant noise.

 

  Lucas looks back at Ben.  “We’re almost there.”

 

  And then they _are_ and shit, Ben figures he probably should have heard this, too.

 

  There’s a circle in the mess of forest where the trees are just gone.  Not flattened or destroyed, just gone.  There’s no bracken or fallen leaves or twigs or anything else that makes a forest floor more than a patch of dirt between trees.  It’s just new earth, black and moist and fertile, and in the middle there’s a small mass of it heaving and roiling with something Ben isn’t sure if he wants to know.

 

  “Lucas?”

 

  “Yeah?”

 

  “I’m not too sure about this cosmic plan thing anymore.”

 

  Lucas laughs, uneasily.  “I never said anything about a plan, Benny.  I think everything else has about as much of an idea as to what’s going on as we do.”

 

  “That’s comforting.”

 

  “You never believed in anything, anyway.” 

 

  Ben shakes his head.  He has a feeling that this entire conversation is stalling tactics, but he’s honestly okay with that.  “It’s not that I don’t believe anything’s out there, I just don’t believe it cares.”

 

  Lucas grins.  “We’re stalling.”

 

  “We are.”

 

  And then they walk towards the mass, Ben pulling out his gun and Lucas pulling out his bong.  Ben gives him a look.  Lucas shrugs.

 

  “It can work as a makeshift club.”

 

  Ben rolls his eyes and walks forwards a little more, crouching beside the mass.  Tentatively, he brushes away the earth.

 

  A hand, pale and human and certainly _alive_ is revealed.  Lucas makes a noise in the back of his throat.  Ben pushes some more earth away and another hand joins the first.

 

  “Help me with this.”

 

  Lucas crouches down next to him and starts digging till the crown of a head is unburied.  In unison Ben grabs one arm and Lucas the other and they tug the figure, naked and shivering and fish belly pale, onto the dirt next to them.  His hair is an ashy brown, and when he cracks open his eyes to look at them warily, they’re a clear grey-blue.

 

  “Hey.”  Ben clears his throat.  “Uh, I’m, uh, Ben.  That’s Lucas.  Uh.  You’re…well, you’re safe now, I guess.  Um.  So who are…” 

 

  But Undead Mystery Man closed his eyes and fell asleep again.

 

  “I guess he’s been through a lot.”  Lucas says this quietly as he reaches into his backpack for some extra clothes.

 

  “Yeah…”  They sort of manhandle and shuffle him into clothes, tugging at his limbs until they settle into pants and long sleeves.  “So is this it?”

 

  Lucas tilts his head to the side, closing his eyes.  “Yeah, actually.  I think.”

 

  Ben looks down at the sleeping man.  “Well, that was…anticlimactic.”

 

  “I would think its better that way.”

 

  “I suppose.”  But, honestly, now what the hell is Ben supposed to do? 

 

  It’s not like there are handbooks for dealing with these kinds of situations.

 

.:.:.

 

  They take turns piggybacking him as they walk back to the car, and the third time Ben’s carrying him, the breath against the side of his neck speeds up, just barely, and Mystery Man’s head shifts till the breath is against Ben’s ear.

 

  “I’m Adam.”  The words are whispered across the shell of Ben’s ear, and then Adam passes out again.

 

  Well.  Now all Ben has to do is figure out who Adam is.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback would be lovely, if you have the time. C:


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